Middle East crisis live: mediators push on with Gaza ceasefire talks amid fresh strikes | Gaza

Patrick Wintour

The Iranian government is attempting to salvage some influence with Syria’s new leaders, as Tehran reels from its sudden loss of authority in Damascus after the collapse of the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is already facing multiple domestic and international crises, including power cuts due to a lack of oil supplies, continued tensions over its nuclear programme and a row about a new law that will make wearing the hijab compulsory for women. But it is the sudden loss of influence in Syria after the fall of Assad to rebel groups that is exercising Iranian officials most…

Helen Pidd

On Friday’s episode of Today in Focus. Helen Pidd speaks to her former lodger, Yasser, a Syrian refugee contemplating moving back home

In 2015, Syrian refugee Yasser moved into Today in Focus presenter Helen Pidd’s home. He had travelled for 37 days across land and sea to escape the horrors of the war in Syria. Since then, Yasser has lived in Manchester, but has always longed to return to Syria.

“Sunday morning, 8 December 2024. That was the best morning of my life,” Yasser tells Helen.

“When I heard Assad had gone out, I said: ‘Now we have a homeland.’ Before that, I didn’t feel like I had a homeland.”

After the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Yasser and Helen reunite. They discuss why Yasser was forced to leave Syria, his desire to return and his hopes for the country.

You can read about Yasser and Helen’s time living together here…

Sweden announces it will cease its funding of the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), opting instead to provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via alternative means, the Scandinavian country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, told Swedish broadcaster TV4 on Friday.

Israel, which will ban UNRWA’s operations in the country in January, has repeatedly accused the agency of being involved in Hamas’ terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023, which precipitated the 13-month-long war in Gaza.

“There are several other organisations in Gaza; I have just been there and met several of them,” Dousa said, citing the U.N. World Food Programme as one potential avenue for continuing humanitarian aid.

Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister, has welcomed Sweden’s decision, claiming UNRWA “has lost its legitimacy to exist”.

Earlier this month, The United Nations General Assembly demanded that Israel respect the agency’s mandate and “enable its operations to proceed without impediment or restriction”.

A Turkish drone has killed two journalists from Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast while covering the fighting between Ankara-backed militia and US-backed Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, the AFP reports.

Nazim Dastan and Cihan Bilgin were killed on Thursday east of Aleppo when a drone attacked their car, Dicle Firat Journalists’ Association says.

“We condemn this attack on our colleagues and demand accountability,” the group said, describing the pair as “two valuable journalists” reporting on the violence in northern Syria.

The Turkish Journalists Union also condemned the attack, saying they were “allegedly targeted by a Turkish UAV”, commonly known as a drone.

The pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya news agency says a Turkish drone caused the explosion.

The Turkish army insists they do not target civilians, only terror groups.

Welcome to our coverage of the Middle East crisis.

US and Arab mediators are working around the clock to prepare a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, sources close to the talks have told Reuters, as strikes continued in Gaza, with medics there saying 44 Palestinians were killed on Thursday.

Mediators at talks in Egypt and Qatar are trying to forge a deal to pause the 14-month-old war that would include a release of hostages seized by Hamas from Israel during the attacks of 7 October 2023, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Mediators had managed to narrow some gaps on previous sticking points but differences remained, the sources said.

Medics reported that dozens had died in strikes on houses, shelters and refugee camps in Gaza City, a camp in central Gaza, and a housing project near Beit Lahiya in the north.

The Israeli military commented on a strike in the eastern Gaza City’s suburb of Tuffah, saying it struck Hamas militants operating in command and control complexes in areas that were previously used as the Al-Karama and Sha’ban Schools in that suburb. It said Hamas used the complexes to plan and execute attacks against its forces.

Here is a selection of the latest developments:

• Israel has launched widespread airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, killing at least nine people in the port city of Hodeidah, and threatened more attacks against the group, which has launched hundreds of missiles at Israel over the past year. There had been reports beforehand that Israel was planning to hit Yemen with force after a recent increase in Houthi attacks, including two in the past week.

• All references to Syria’s former ruling Ba’ath party will be removed from the country’s education system, the country’s new education minister said. Speaking to Reuters, Nazir Mohammad al-Qadri added that the country’s new leaders will not otherwise change school curricula or restrict the right of girls to learn, saying, “Education is a red line for the Syrian people, more important than food and water … The right to education is not limited to one specific gender. There may be more girls in our schools than boys.”

• The UK government has said any new Syrian government needs to build a “secure and peaceful” Syria weeks after its president Bashar al-Assad fled the country. Foreign Office minister Anneliese Dodds said British officials had met with the Syrian rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Damascus and the UK was giving Syria £61m in aid.

• Thousands of people demonstrated on Thursday in north-east Syria in support of a US-backed, Kurdish-led force that for weeks has been pushing back against Turkey-backed fighters, an AFP correspondent said. The show of support for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) comes after Islamist-led rebels toppled Syria’s longtime strongman Bashar al-Assad earlier this month.

• Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” in the Gaza Strip in a report documenting the 14-month conflict published on Thursday. The report documents 41 attacks on MSF staff including airstrikes on health facilities and direct fire on humanitarian convoys, AFP reported. The NGO said it was forced to evacuate hospitals and health centres on 17 occasions.

• Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia had not been defeated in Syria and that Moscow had made proposals to the new rulers in Damascus over Russia’s military bases there. Putin said he had not yet met with Bashar al-Assad but planned to meet him and said he would ask about the fate of missing US reporter Austin Tice.

Bethan McKernan

Bashar al-Assad’s face has been ripped away from posters at the abandoned checkpoint that separates Sheikh Maqsoud, a neighbourhood in the north of Aleppo, from the rest of the city. No cars dare use the wide boulevard any more because the road is still watched by Kurdish snipers allied to the regime. The units retreated into the warren of bombed and burnt-out buildings when Islamist rebel groups launched an unprecedented attack on the city at the end of November, triggering a chain reaction that led to the swift collapse of the Assad dynasty.